


Peers

by mouriana



Category: Forever (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4983082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouriana/pseuds/mouriana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later chapter in ongoing work in progress.  Introduces idea of a relationship between Sherlock and a like-minded female who happens to be immortal, a la Forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peers

Making my way out of Boating Lake, and then Regents Park, in the middle of the night is often difficult. Being stark naked makes it even more so. I had long ago buried stashes of minimal amounts of clothing around most of the bodies of water in London in the probable event that I would need them at some point. But I had foolishly not kept up with them, so I discovered to my dismay that the steel lock box I had buried around this particular lake had been damaged long enough ago that the light robe inside had rotted beyond usability. Frustrated, I wiped the dirt off my hands as best I could. Now I had nothing but darkness—and thank goodness it was well after dark—and my wits to protect me from sight, possible capture, and incarceration for indecent exposure.   
Though this was quite the predicament, I found myself more worried about Sherlock. Much more worried. Though I had told him my secret, I had given him no proof. He seemed to at least grant me the benefit of the doubt, but I knew he had to be incredulous at the minimum. He was a man of science. Hearing that a colleague was almost 230 years old, didn’t age, and had repeatedly returned from the dead was a bit beyond even his definition of normal. Plus, I had never told him how it worked. I had only described the initial occurrence, which I hadn’t understood at the time, either. He didn’t know of the seven deaths in between. He couldn’t be aware that my body and clothing would disappear when I died, though the fact that it had just happened in front of him may have given him a clue. Or, it may have driven him completely mad. How would he react?  
And at this moment, going over the map of safe locations in my mind, I realised that the closest safe location where I could run was actually Baker Street. Though it was horribly public, it was only a single street over. Almost right over the wall. If I hurried, found dark corners and timed things well, I might be able to make it without attracting attention. And though, ironically, Sherlock couldn’t possibly have made it back there yet, I hoped that Mrs Hudson would be home, wouldn’t ask too many questions, and would have a robe to lend me. I wasn’t sure how late it was—I hadn’t even looked at the time when we left the restaurant, which was unusual for me—but I imagined it was past midnight, since I think the restaurant owner had been trying to close for a while, and I’m not even sure what time John left us to go home. All very unlike me to be so oblivious. It’s just that the conversation…it had been so long since I had opened myself up to anyone. At all. For any reason. Heavens, I rarely even went to the same hairdresser more than twice for fear of becoming too familiar. So to not only open up, but to be delighted by stimulating conversation was something I could not remember having done in a very long time.   
I shivered. Did I really use that word? Delighted? It sent an electric chill through me, and I realised that it hadn’t just been a long time since I had had a conversation like that. In all of my two hundred and thirty years, I could not recall ever having such a conversation.   
I looked up and cursed myself for not being aware of the time, and London’s light pollution made it difficult to read the star positions enough to tell the time from them. But I knew the geography of the lake well enough to know which way was west, so I steeled myself, then carefully watched, timed, and darted over the park grounds. As I did so, a part of my mind could not let go of the racing thoughts over the evening’s earlier activities. The fact that I had been oblivious to normally obvious details, as well as using the word delighted to describe the conversation, was a troubling sign which I had never seen in myself before. I had, however, seen it in others. And without exception, I had always interpreted such behaviour to mean but one thing.   
I could not take my pulse now, as the running would cloud the results. And darkness would skew the dilation of my pupils even if I could see them. Other symptoms would require a series of chemicals tests to determine. But if my brain was not deceiving me, and it rarely did, I was growing overly fond of Sherlock Holmes.  
Angry determination gripped me with the thought as I found an opening in the shrubbery and made my way quickly over a dark stretch of the short wall surrounding the park. Such feelings, however new and intriguing they might be, were entirely unacceptable, if for no other reason than I did not age. I had yet to find a way in which I could die and stay dead. Sherlock Holmes, I was quite sure, had no such malady. I had known for nearly two hundred years that this made any kind of relationship impossible. Imprudent, ridiculous, and utterly and completely impossible.   
And yet…and yet another part of my brain kept playing with delightful tidbits of conversations, not just from tonight, but from the days and weeks prior while working with him. And not just conversation, but the way his smile would turn up half his mouth when he was curiously amused, and all of his mouth when he seemed genuinely happy. The red stitching around the buttonhole that no one else seemed to realise symbolised that lost Irish Setter that had torn apart his young boy heart so long ago; that symbol of a heart that actually was capable of loving, and loving deeply and completely, contrary to almost every action he had ever expressed in his adult life. His relationship with John, so close and silly and deep, that proved that the tender heart still existed. His protective nature, how he had tried to stand in front of me when the attacker approached us tonight, though I could not let him do such a pointless task and instead spun in front and lost another of my own lives protecting him.   
I was around the corner of Baker Street now, 221 not twenty metres away when a sudden panic gripped me. I had died. That bullet had ripped through me like butter and I had died, but that only took a moment, leaving nothing else to protect him. And alleyway ambushers never come with just one bullet.   
Suddenly terrified to the loss of reason, I sprinted for the door of 221, uncaring if traffic or neighbours or anyone saw me, running naked. I had to know.  
I pounded on the door. When a seeming eternity of pounding brought no answer, I began calling Mrs Hudson’s name. It seemed like another eternity, and I was seeing lights come on in windows up and down the street, but finally the door opened. I wasn’t sure if it was the chill or modesty that prompted me to try to at least cover my chest with my arms, but the sight of me sent Mrs Hudson into a fit.   
“Oh! What has happened to all your clothes, dear? What’s happened that you’re pounding on the door at two in the morning without a stitch of clothing?”  
I pushed my way past her into the hallway, not having to act to appear quite distraught. “We were attacked. Gunpoint. Took my purse and phone and all my clothes and threw me in a pond and I have no idea what happened to Sherlock. Have you heard from him? Have you heard anything?”  
Mrs Hudson, already a bit nervous from the early morning wakening, was now moved to more frantic action.  
“Oh! Oh no, dear, I haven’t heard a thing! Have you called the police?”  
“They took my phone, Mrs Hudson, and I haven’t had a chance to call the police. Can you call them? We need to call Inspector Lestrade.”  
She ushered me into her flat, now seemingly oblivious to my lack of clothing, sat me down at the table and handed me the phone. I quickly dialled Lestrade’s number and was panicking all over again when he answered only after five rings with a sleepy voice.  
“Oh my god, he hasn’t called you. He must still be there—”  
He seemed to wake up quickly. “Who must still be where? Is this Emma Bedingfield? What are you talking about?”  
“Alleyway. Half block north of Jade Terrace restaurant. Sherlock and I were attacked at gunpoint, separated, maybe twenty minutes ago. I don’t know what happened to him, and he hasn’t contacted you, so I’m afraid—”  
“I’m on it. Where are you now?”   
“With Mrs Hudson.”  
“Stay there. I’ll ring you when I find out what is going on.” He rang off rather abruptly and I, numb, placed Mrs Hudson’s phone back on the receiver.   
Mrs Hudson was watching me with worry in her eyes, but ever the caregiver, she offered me tea and a robe. I accepted, and once properly covered, I sat and watched her make tea.   
“He’ll be all right, dear,” she soothed, though there was a tension in her voice that said she was at least somewhat worried, too. “He always turns up all right.”  
Suddenly chilled, I curled my legs up against my chest and wrapped my arms around them.  
It was my fault.  
I buried my head against my thighs and cried.

I don’t remember drinking the tea, but the empty cup was in front of me when the silent flashing of police lights through the front window behind me pulled me from a stupor. I stood quickly and whirled around, only to see him standing there in the doorway, looking at least as shocked as I felt. He was wearing the same clothing he had been wearing when I had seen him last, but he was now also drenched from a rain I had not noticed and wearing a hideous orange shock blanket around his shoulders.   
“You were telling the truth. That whole story…Suffolk…Waveney…it was all true.”  
I nodded. “What happened? I got here and Mrs Hudson hadn’t heard from you and I called Lestrade and he hadn’t heard from you and I was so afraid that the gunman had shot you and—”  
“When he shot, and you spun in front of me and took that bullet—” He shook his head, as if trying to fully recall and possibly comprehend what he had seen. “I saw your face, and the blood blossom from your neck, and then you were just…gone. Vanished, not a drop of blood or scrap of clothing. Just...gone. But the gunman, he saw it, too. He panicked and ran. Then I don’t know what came over me; I just ran after him. Caught him a few doors down, knocked him to the ground. Apparently I had beaten him quite unconscious by the time Lestrade showed up.” He lifted his arm, looking at bloody knuckles on a hand that would not stop shaking.  
Somehow I was now standing right in front of him, though I didn’t remember either of us taking any steps to close the gap.   
I wasn’t sure what to make of how he was looking at me. He still seemed somewhat stunned, but there was something else.   
He reached out and touched my hair, which was still damp. His fingers ran carefully down the waves to my waist.   
“It always goes back to the length it was when I died the first time,” I said softly. A tickle in the back of my mind wondered where Mrs Hudson was and why she was silent all this time, but most of me didn’t care.  
I noticed a splotch of blood at his right shoulder and a hole torn in his coat. I let out a tiny gasp.  
“Oh my god, he did shoot you!”  
His face looked a little perplexed. “There was only one shot fired. The one that hit you. I don’t remember getting hit, but it must have passed through you and hit me. I didn’t know how to explain that to the medics.”  
I put my fingers gently on the wound, which had been stitched up and wasn’t bleeding. That was a blessing, at least.  
“I bet they took pictures.”  
“Who?”  
“Lestrade’s people. They’ve told me they love to take pictures when….”  
He actually gave me a real half-smile then.   
“I think Lestrade wants your statement.”  
“Oh, all right.”  
He looked behind me. “Thank you, Mrs Hudson. Lestrade needs her statement, and I can take it from there.”  
“You’re welcome, dear.” Her voice was rather soft and a little bewildered. I was completely unsure of how much she had overheard.  
Sherlock took me outside where the flashing lights of an ambulance and police car were still lighting up the street.   
Lestrade came up to me, pulling out his notebook.  
“Sorry for the trauma, Miss Bedingfield. We just need a quick statement from you and then we can go; Sherlock told us most of what happened. First, is this the guy who attacked you?”  
He brought me to the ambulance where a much-bloodied man was lying in bandages on a gurney. I peered at him, honestly barely able to recognise his face, but I recognised the clothing.   
“That’s him.”  
On hearing my voice, the man moved his head just enough to see me. And he started screaming.   
I backed away from the ambulance, actually sorry for the man who had only minutes before technically killed me.   
“That’s odd,” said Lestrade, jotting something in his notebook. “We still haven’t found any of your belongings, Miss Bedingfield, but we’ll keep looking.”  
“Thank you, Inspector. I appreciate how much you’ve done.” I actually walked over and kissed him on the cheek after I said it. He smiled and blushed.   
“Our pleasure, Miss Bedingfield. Do you need a ride home?”  
I fingered the collar of the robe. “I don’t want to get hauled all over London in a borrowed dressing gown. I will see if Mrs Hudson has more appropriate clothing and take a taxi home. But thank you again.”  
He was still smiling from the kiss, but he nodded and let me head back to 221. I didn’t see anything of Sherlock but a discarded orange blanket thrown into the open window of the police car. I smiled somewhat wistfully, glad that the night was over and hoping there would be no more unforeseen repercussions. And hoping that my mental acuity would fully return with some sleep. That must have been it, I assured myself. Panic, death, lack of sleep. That was what had muddled my brain. Silly, silly girl. Find a friend after two hundred years and you get all carried away. But being outside, with my hair still damp, had chilled me again, and I was shivering. I really needed some proper clothing.  
The door to 221 was ajar so I let myself in, but I was surprised to see Sherlock sitting on the steps going up to the B flat. I closed the door behind me.  
“I’m just going to see if Mrs Hudson—”  
“I thought you were dead. I hadn’t fully believed you, so when that shot ripped through you, I thought you were dead.”  
I inhaled sharply. I wasn’t expecting this. His eyes were wide, his hands shaking. Perhaps the shock really had been too much.  
“And then you simply weren’t. You weren’t there at all, it was like you had been this fevered, drug-induced hallucination and everything came back. Redbeard’s death. Mycroft constantly telling me how stupid I was. Everything bad that has ever happened. I remembered how you told me I had walls and I hadn’t wanted to believe you. But now I saw them, tall and thick, with a huge, gaping hole in them—” His voice cracked and the chill that had been in my body moved into my soul. He was motioning to his chest and there were tears in his eyes. Actual, real tears, and his hands were still shaking.  
“I’m so sorry.” My voice was soft, but it was all I could muster. “I’m so, so, sorry. If I had known—”  
“Then Lestrade was pulling me off the gunman and telling me you had called and told him where to find me. You had called him. And I realised not only that you were real, and alive, but that everything you had said was true. Everything. I also realised that I have entirely underestimated everything about you.” He stood, looking nervous and unsure of what to do. Something entirely unlike him.  
There was a fluttery feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t be sure if it was caused by the chill. We both stood there for a number of long moments.  
“I don’t know what to do,” he said softly. “I find that feeling totally unfamiliar and I don’t like it.”  
“Neither do I.” I was shivering more vigorously now, as the dampness of my hair had soaked through Mrs. Hudson’s thin robe, chilling me to the bone. After another long pause, I turned towards 221C. “I should check with Mrs Hudson and see if she has some more proper clothing that I could borrow.”  
Then he was there, putting his long grey coat over my shoulders. I could still smell the blood on it and I fingered the hole reflexively before looking up at his face.  
“Thank you.”  
“It is…my pleasure.” Those words, which I doubted he even said often, sounded unusually sincere. Even his face, normally austere and even haughty, seemed softened. I tried to ascribe it to the trauma and utter bewilderment of the night’s events, but I could not make myself fully believe it.   
“I should make you some tea.”   
I had already had tea from Mrs Hudson, and the coat was already warming me quite nicely. Yet I heard myself say, “That would be very nice, thank you.” Without much hesitation, I followed him up to 221B.   
I curled up in John’s chair, wrapping the coat around me, while Sherlock retreated to the kitchen to make tea. Without thinking, I found myself fingering the collar and pulling it up around my face, taking in the scent of it like a gourmand takes in a culinary masterpiece. Aside from the blood, the strongest smells were quite ordinary: dry cleaning chemicals, ordinary bath soap, a little sweat. But there were hints of gunpowder residue, formaldehyde, tobacco, and a musty old book smell that made it uniquely Sherlock. And I could not stop myself from breathing it in.  
When Sherlock came back with the tea, he had stopped shaking and sat in his regular chair. For a moment I was afraid that he would assume his normal position, lording over the room like a great overseer, master of his domain, ready to take in facts to determine if the case was worthy of his time. And for a moment, he sat back in his chair as if preparing to do so. But then he seemed to think better of it, and leaned forward with his arms upon his knees, looking at his hands as if unsure what to do with them. The silence lasted until I was uncomfortable and I had to speak.  
“You want to ask me questions, but you don’t know what to ask.”   
He looked up at me as I said this, his eyes searching mine. “Yes.”  
A moment’s pause while still he searched.   
“Your only experiences with someone who reads you well are Moriarty, Irene Adler, or Mycroft. The enemy, the manipulator, the sibling rival.”  
He looked down at his hands again. “Yes.”  
“You have a formidable rapport with John, but he is different. He complements you, challenges your sociopathic tendencies and fills in gaps where you are weaker. But he cannot read people, situations, facts, as we do.” I wanted to add that he was male and I was female, but I did not want to wander into territory I wasn’t sure if either of us could deal with yet.  
“Yes.”  
“And now here I am, something new and entirely different, and you have no idea how to understand or interact with me.” I set down my cup and saucer on the end table. “Sherlock, I am not them. I do not wish to destroy, manipulate, or control you. But neither am I one to be manipulated or controlled by you. I am not a tool, or a game, or an enemy. I am just a person, perhaps even an peer. Something new.”  
I could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, but he was still looking at his hands. This time he didn’t respond, and I realised I desperately wanted him to. I had been talking like I knew the answers, when I really was completely at a loss. When I realised this, I leaned back in my chair, yearning for easy answers, yearning for Sherlock to say something that would make everything clear again.  
“I don’t know the answers either. I don’t know why anything happens or what I’m supposed to do now or what I’m feeling and if I should act on it or suppress it. And I don’t like the feeling of not knowing and not being in control.”  
He sat up then, not his normal, dominating presence, but not the confused child, either. He smiled at me. His self-confidence seemed to be returning. “Precisely why I learn everything about things I may need in any case.”  
I returned his smile, though I was feeling the moment of vulnerability and closeness had passed, and I found myself a little disappointed. I took in and exhaled a large breath that was not quite a sigh.   
“Thank you for the tea. I am quite warm, now, thank you. I can see myself out, and catch a cab home—”  
I had not been watching him as I said these words and rose from my chair to leave, so when he took my hand and gently turned me around to face him only inches from me, I was rather surprised.   
“Don’t leave. Not yet. You are right that this is new. And, like you, I am unfamiliar and uncomfortable with not knowing precisely how to deal with every situation. But…” he paused. It seemed to be a terribly long pause. “I want to learn.”  
I was afraid of precisely what he could mean. “As…a lesson?”  
“No. As…a person.”  
What I had yearned for only moments before was now so close that it terrified me, and I found my mind scrambling for exits. “But…the vulnerability it presents…the risks! Your encounter with Magnussen alone should be enough to teach you—”  
His hands were suddenly cradling my head and his lips pressed against mine with a heat that melted my disappointment and my resolve, as well as the muscles in my arms and legs. I knew I had doubts and fears, but suddenly I could no longer quite remember what they were.  
When he pulled back, my eyes opened and were nearly lost in the turquoise blue of his, only inches from my own.   
“That was quite unfair,” I breathed.  
“Since I met you, your acumen has rivalled even my own. And yet you use it for good, making you not a challenger, but a catalyst. My observations combined with yours propel me to heights I never knew existed. Your brilliance is astounding, inspiring, invigorating….”  
If his kiss had melted the muscles in my arms and legs, his words now dissolved my bones. So many years being seen as a pretty face, a vapid object. To finally have someone see, understand, and value my mind set my heart aflame. I had experienced the same ecstatic sensations in camaraderie and now, to know he felt the same! The only answer I could give was kissing him passionately while holding his head in my hands so violently that my fingers tangled in his curly locks.


End file.
